It was that smile that maddened Irene. She ran across the room, her terror tinged with ferocity, and laid a hand on Clare’s bare arm. One thought possessed her. She couldn’t have Clare Kendry cast aside by Bellew. She couldn’t have her free.
Before them stood John Bellew, speechless now in his hurt and anger. Beyond them the little huddle of other people, and Brian stepping out from among them.
What happened next, Irene Redfield never afterwards allowed herself to remember. Never clearly.
One moment Clare had been there, a vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and gold. The next she was gone.
There was a gasp of horror, and above it a sound not quite human, like a beast in agony. “Nig! My God! Nig!”
A frenzied rush of feet down long flights of stairs. The slamming of distant doors. Voices.
Irene stayed behind. She sat down and remained quite still, staring at a ridiculous Japanese print on the wall across the room.
Gone! The soft white face, the bright hair, the disturbing scarlet mouth, the dreaming eyes, the caressing smile, the whole torturing loveliness that had been Clare Kendry. That beauty that had torn at Irene’s placid life. Gone! The mocking daring, the gallantry of her pose, the ringing bells of her laughter.
Irene wasn’t sorry. She was amazed, incredulous almost.
What would the others think? That Clare had fallen? That she had deliberately leaned backward? Certainly one or the other. Not—
But she mustn’t, she warned herself, think of that. She was too tired, and too shocked. And, indeed, both were true. She was utterly weary, and she was violently staggered. But her thoughts reeled on. If only she could be as free of mental as she was of bodily vigour; could only put from her memory the vision of her hand on Clare’s arm!
“It was an accident, a terrible accident,” she muttered fiercely. “It was.”
People were coming up the stairs. Through the still open door their steps and talk sounded nearer, nearer.
Quickly she stood up and went noiselessly into the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her.
Her thoughts raced. Ought she to have stayed? Should she go back out there to them? But there would be questions. She hadn’t thought of them, of afterwards, of this. She had thought of nothing in that sudden moment of action.
It was cold. Icy chills ran up her spine and over her bare neck and shoulders.
In the room outside there were voices. Dave Freeland’s and others that she did not recognize.
Should she put on her coat? Felise had rushed down without any wrap. So had all the others. So had Brian. Brian! He mustn’t take cold. She took up his coat and left her own. At the door she paused for a moment, listening fearfully. She heard nothing. No voices. No footsteps. Very slowly she opened the door. The room was empty. She went out.
In the hall below she heard dimly the sound of feet going down the steps, of a door being opened and closed, and of voices far away.
Down, down, down, she went, Brian’s great coat clutched in her shivering arms and trailing a little on each step behind her.
What was she to say to them when at last she had finished going down those endless stairs? She should have rushed out when they did. What reason could she give for her dallying behind? Even she didn’t know why she had done that. And what else would she be asked? There had been her hand reaching out towards Clare. What about that?
In the midst of her wonderings and questionings came a thought so terrifying, so horrible, that she had had to grasp hold of the banister to save herself from pitching downwards. A cold perspiration drenched her shaking body. Her breath came short in sharp and painful gasps.
What if Clare was not dead?
She felt nauseated, as much at the idea of the glorious body mutilated as from fear.
How she managed to make the rest of the journey without fainting she never knew. But at last she was down. Just at the bottom she came on the others, surrounded by a little circle of strangers. They were all speaking in whispers, or in the awed, discreetly lowered tones adapted to the presence of disaster. In the first instant she wanted to turn and rush back up the way she had come. Then a calm desperation came over her. She braced herself, physically and mentally.
“Here’s Irene now,” Dave Freeland announced, and told her that, having only just missed her, they had concluded that she had fainted or something like that, and were on the way to find out about her. Felise, she saw, was holding on to his arm, all the insolent nonchalance gone out of her, and the golden brown of her handsome face changed to a queer mauve colour.
Irene made no indication that she had heard Freeland, but went straight to Brian. His face looked aged and altered, and his lips were purple and trembling. She had a great longing to comfort him, to charm away his suffering and horror. But she was helpless, having so completely lost control of his mind and heart.
She stammered: “Is she—is she—?”
It was Felise who answered. “Instantly, we think.”
Irene struggled against the sob of thankfulness that rose in her throat. Choked down, it turned to a whimper, like a hurt child’s. Someone laid a hand on her shoulder in a soothing gesture. Brian wrapped his coat about her. She began to cry rackingly, her entire body heaving with convulsive sobs. He made a slight perfunctory attempt to comfort her.
“There, there, Irene. You mustn’t. You’ll make yourself sick. She’s—” His voice broke suddenly.
As from a long distance she heard Ralph Hazelton’s voice saying: “I was looking right at her. She just tumbled over and was gone before you could say ‘Jack Robinson.’ Fainted, I guess. Lord!
